If it was all yours how would you sell it.

[up2no6ood]

Well we finally got the estate in order and all the antiques are taking up my garage space Ive gotta sell this stuff but I dont want to give it away. We had harris bros. auction house come in to take a look at it today and they slapped us in the face with a 8k buyout offer. We kindly showed them the door and almost cried. I know this stuff is worth more than 8k and I know that other "antique sellers" wont pay top dollar because they have to make a profit too. So how would you sell it all? Auction, estate sale, Ebay? We contacted the heisey museum and the would sell our heisey glass for us in auction but it could take up to two years to sell it all! Take a look at all the photos and please give me some insight.  http://s28.photobucket.com/albums/c226/jmg0529/Estate/antiques/

[regularjoe2]

Sounds like you've got some things going on that are unknown , in regards to this estate , to members on the forum .

You certainly do have a slug of options that you could exercise .

It appears as if you've got a number of 'unfinished project' pieces (furniture) , which tend to only have a fairly small (and budget-minded) client 'list' - composed of folks who'll want to go through the $ & work it takes to finish/refinish/restore such pieces .
This is not to say that there's no quality there , it's just that they're incomplete , or in need of a bunch of work to 'bring them up-to-snuff' .

Perhaps some other furniture items you have could be improved in appearance & 'marketability' by simply cleaning & oiling them - it's not super-hard to do & might just help you work off some frustration !

Where I'm going here is to suggest you might consider placing your items into catagories (smaller piles , if you will) to be sold together , and to advertise the type of sale for each genre of stuff (several sales , in otherwords) to the end of drawing folks interested in specific types of things , versus a 'garage-sale atmosphere' sale .

The issue of emotional attachment to items , or to the person who owned them , can really get in the way of a family member who has to be the liquidator of an estate .

If you're in a hurry to 'get rid' of your estate , (without trying to be rude here) uptono6ood , steel yourself for more tears .

You've got a fine old collection of lamps & other fragile items that will take/need considerable attention & time to ship , in the event you you decide to sell the items one at a time , via Ebay & such .
The same considerations will apply , if you've got to prepare them for transport to a auction , etc .

My big question is : are you up to the task of doing all the work yourself ?

[KC]

Agree with the wise advise of regjoe about the furniture.

Myself...I would take the long, hard path of doing each item individually.  Time is on your side if you don't have to get into your garage!  It would also help me with the emotional part of it.

[ironlord1963]

    Wow sure had me drooling at those pictures.  I Agree with Kc about the long and hard path selling each on individually.  Those items would go fast and hard on Ebay.  Of course it would depend on the time you have available, if you have a day job you could sure quit it for a year and make this your job and easily make the house payments.  This is of course coming from someone who is right now having a blast with ebay as a hobby.  It is easy to post about 100 items a week and keep your day job, with enough effort you could do 200 items, I think you could clear out your garage in a few months.  However if you don't have that kind of time you may want to check into a Antique Mall, every few weeks change out items to keep it fresh and I think you would fair very well here too.   Of course if you want to get someone to Auction the whole lot, you will loose lots of potiental $$$ but have your garage back in a couple of weeks.  Or you could hire me and I could Ebay it for you  .   You have a task ahead of you for sure, so IMO I say take your time and enjoy it, learn about each item as you go along.  Trust me it can be fun     

[up2no6ood]

lol im almost tempted to put all 500 pieces of heisey on ebay for a starting bid of $5000 and just let her go. I have been looking on the completed listings on ebay for single heisey peices and I see rare things valued at $500 being listed for $170 and not selling 

[waywardangler]

KC, regjoe, and ironlord all have good and valid points however I see all your tools in that garage and your blaze orange pants hanging there and I am guessing that you want your garage back by deer season at the latest.  Probably sooner so you can get to the drill press and all those wrenches.  What they are talking about is a lot of work and time.  A lot of work and time.  I go to many sales and I have had an estate sale after my mother passed away so I have been on both sides.  After an estate sale you still have items that have not sold because they were too high, nobody wanted them, wrong crowd, etc.  You will have the same with eBay.  An auction will get rid of everything but I would vote for an offsite auction so everyone is not traipsing through your house and yard.  Move it all, auction it off, go home and relax after it is all done.  Spend some time choosing the right auctioneer and don't look back.  Items are worth what someone is willing to pay for them at a particular point in time.  Price points change up and down.  Make a decision, stick with it and do not second guess yourself.  Look at the whole picture and not what one item went for.  Some items will be higher than expected, some lower, and some in the middle. With an 8k offer, I would assume there is 16k there.  I think you have some options depending on how much you want to do.

[ironlord1963]

   Yea for the most part Ebay has brought the value of items down, and then with the economy just starting to pick up slowly value of items are 1/2 if not 1/4 of the value in the books.  I see that at antique malls too, Just a couple of weeks ago I went and spent several hours in the Antique mall and wrote down pages upon pages of items and their asking price, then went home and check out Ebay, I can get every thing on my list for well under half of the asking price at the mall.  Ebay in many ways has destroyed the value of items.  However this is still the best way to move your items, with thousands of potiental buyers looking for deals.  You could group them together and sell the whole lot at once, but you will lose much more of the value then if you do them seperate, They will sell as a group fast cause I sure would spend $5000 for 500 pieces of heisey Glass  .  One trick with Ebay is you will find yourself reposting several times possibly until someone comes along and wants that item for the price that is close to what it is worth, but I assure you they will eventually sale.

[talesofthesevenseas]

Considering the sheer volume of what you have there, if you do end up using Ebay, you might consider recruiting a trusted friend or family member to help with listing the items, answering questions and packing/shipping, for a percentage of the profit on each item sold. Another option is to use one of the drop off services that does all that for you.

[talesofthesevenseas]

...And I just happened to notice the similarities between your barley twist table and the one in my all time favorite photograph. Below is your table, and a similar one in about 1890 in a house of ill repute in the "Storyville" district of New Orleans. Just thought you'd get a kick out of that!

[KC]

Need I ask how you have a pic of a house of ill repute??!!!!!!!!

[Texasbadger]

I would go find a nice storage unit with security features, cameras and such with live on site managers, and pay for a storage unit.  Takes the "pressure" off clearing out the garage, you can sell batches or singly at your leisure, and with the furniture you can work on improving them in your garage.  Perhaps check with local antique dealers for when the next antiques show is,,rent a couple of tables and sell items yourself to maximize return.

[talesofthesevenseas]

These are part of a famous series by E.J. Bellocq. During his younger days he frequented the New Orleans brothels and was one of the few photographers to record the women who worked there. Some of the photos were found with the faces scratched off while the emulsion was still wet, apparently to protect the identities of the women? Others were wearing Mardi Gras style masks in the photos. After Bellocq's death, these photos were found hidden in his couch and were then published.

The book I just finished writing has several scenes that take place in a bordello. In order to get it historically accurate, I did a whole lot of research in this area and also based my writing on the few surviving accounts of visits to brothels and the whole "medical inspection" that a customer had done first etc. One of the best books on the subject is "The Lost Sisterhood" by Ruth Rosen and this photograph is on the cover. I first saw it on this book's cover about 15 years ago and have always found it kind of haunting.

[KC]

Are you published yet, or getting published?

[KC]

May I offer some more information for you to chew on......

Generally, it seems that other sites such as Ruby Lane, etc. bring a higher price for items.  So, you might want to look into that.  These sites seem to have items that are a "bit more reputable" and less garage sale atmosphere.  However, I do like ebay.

Glass collector conventions are another venue.  You might want to contact the Heisey Collectors of American group...they have a convention/club even coming up....http://www.collectorsweekly.com/events/2161-heisey-collectors-of-america-inc--39th

If you are not into antiques/glass, etc....then this might not be a good experience for you.  On the other hand, if you are or are leaning that way...this can be a great opportunity to learn about it.  To get the most for your items you will need to identify each item.  The high dollar ones need to be sold separately - I would not cluster them with others.  Cluster the lesser priced items if you feel that is what you want to do.  (I would sell each for as it sells and items that don't sell....keep or donate to museums, etc (tax write-offs are as good as money in many cases).

[syl]

Up2, aren't you the person that posted awhile back about dividing up your moms estate with your sister? If so, I remember a lot of suggestions from that. But to answer your original question, If it was mine, I would go with the estate sale first. Just talk to 2 or 3 estate sale companies first. For you to try to sell all that on ebay or some other site will be a full time job for someone. Can you commit to all that? And I don't think you really want to move all that stuff again, do you. Sell as much as you can at a sale and then deal with the rest. But your probably not going to get full bore retail for all this no matter what you do. Good luck.